Hurricane Ian Anniversary - Stacy Aloisio - City of North Port

Thursday (28th) marks the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Ian's landfall near Fort Myers. The storm took 150 lives in our state and was the costliest hurricane in state history. Stacy Aloisio is the emergency manager in North Port and served with Lee County emergency management during Ian's arrival and worked in the county's recovery efforts. She shares lessons learned and tells us how North Port is doing, one year after the storm.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News. We have the anniversary of Hurricane Ian
coming up in the late part ofSeptember here, and we're going back and
taking a look and talking with peoplein the communities affected most severely by Hurricanean
and finding out what has changed andhow the process of recovery has gone and

(00:24):
how they are preparing for the future. Stacy Alosio is emergency manager for the
City of Northport in South Sarasota Countyand they took a as close to a
full hit as you can imagine fromHurricanean, and she joins us now on
Beyond the News. Stacy Alosio,good day to you and welcome well,

(00:46):
thanks Gordon, Good day to youtwo. What are some of the lessons
that Northport has learned from its experiencewith Hurricane Ian and were you able to
apply any of the experiences to dealingwith our close brush with Hurricane Adelia most
recently. Oh, yes, Actually, there are a lot of lessons learned,

(01:07):
and we actually compeled a big afteraction report with a ton of corrective
actions that we applied to the IDAIIAresponse. Most notably, we updated our
emergency operations center, we increased ourphone and email capabilities. We rearranged the
room to be better cohesive for coordinatingwith each other, and we've built out

(01:30):
our Everbridge software mass notification system alittle bit more so that we could reach
a wider audience. Other things thatwe've done we've been building our relationship with
Sara Sota County. As you mayhave heard ed mccrane, the illustrious emergency
management chief who was in Sara SotaCounty for several years he retired, So

(01:53):
building new relationships with the new leadershipthere has been great. All of our
anything we can't meet locally as faras resources go, we go to the
county. So it's really important thatour communication with the county is there,
and we've been doing a lot sinceIAN to increase those communications and better streamline

(02:14):
our resource ordering processes so that wecan get our resources more quickly and are
able to track them to find outwhere they are on the process of getting
to us. Once they're here,where are they, what are they doing,
and then making sure that those resourcesmake it back home safely. So
those are some of the big thingswe've been doing here now. As that
as IAN was for Northport, youjust missed being on the worst side of

(02:37):
the storm and suffering what was enduredin the Fort Myers area. Do you
think, seeing that at such aclose distance, that people in Northport are
taking things like evacuation notices more seriouslynow than before. So I was actually
working in Lee County as an emergencymanagement coordinator for IAN. I've only been

(02:59):
here since j anyway, so Isaw firsthand response and recovery for Fort Myers,
and with idealia having that picture inmy mind, I was really hoping
that people would take notice this evacuationnotice is seriously and it was more hit
or miss. The fire department cameout and went to some of the more

(03:21):
vulnerable areas and asked if they're goingto evacuate, and some people said yes,
some people said no. There area lot of new people moving into
Northport. We're a growing community.So I think there's some residents who weren't
here for IAN and don't really understandthe importance of evacuating and don't understand what
mandatory evacuation is. We can't makeyou leave your home. Mandatory just means

(03:46):
winds are going to be too highfor us to send vehicles out to you.
If you have an emergency, we'renot going to be able to send
first responders to you. So it'smandatory in that sense that you're on your
own if you don't leave until thewinds calmed down. So I think we
still have a lot of messaging todo, especially for the new residents.

(04:06):
I do think a lot of peoplewere evacuating. There were people in our
shelters sheltering for it. For idealiaand again just hitting that messaging home for
those new people and maybe for thosewho still don't wait take it seriously,
because maybe IAN didn't affect them asmuch as it did a lot of other

(04:26):
a lot of other areas. Ifthey have a stronger home or in a
higher elevated area, maybe they stillfeel like they don't have to leave that.
You mentioned that you experienced IAN inLee County, and that must have
been quite an experience for you.What was your role down there during IAN?

(04:46):
So, I was part of theplanning section in the Emergency Operations Center.
I started off as the situation unitleader, So my job there was
writing up situation reports, maintaining situationalawareness between the EOC and what's happening out
in the field. So it's alot of coordinating and information sharing. And
then another part of my role therewas recovery, So I was able to

(05:11):
transition from situation unit leader into arecovery role of trying to get short term
recovery off the ground, which involvessetting up I don't want to use two
technical terms, but the recovery supportfunctions. So basically there's different eras like
economic recovery, infrastructure recovery, healthand social services and trying to get those
different groups up and running to providerecovery efforts for Lee County after the disaster.

(05:35):
So it sounds as though you wereright at the eye of the storm,
and I'm sure, and in aliteral sense, not a figurative sense
at all, you learned a lotfrom that experience that you've applied. I
trust to your experience now as northBoard emergency Manager, oh one hundred percent.

(05:57):
I would never want to go throughEAN again. But anybody who was
who even if you weren't in LeeCounty, even if you weren't in Northport,
there were so many people who camedown from all over the country to
help us. We all learned somuch from each other and it's something that
we're never going to forget those lessonslearned, So definitely applying those, especially

(06:20):
all of the volunteer organizations that cameout to help in the aftermath of Ian
from faith based organizations, United Way, the Salvation Army. Really tapping into
those organizations. They have some amazingcapabilities from home repairs to mental health,
the spiritual care, financial assistance.So working with them to help spread their

(06:46):
resources, maybe getting our communications departmentin touch with them to share Hey,
you know Catholic Charities has gift cardsthings like that is something that I really
took away as well. Now backto our Northport and how things are looking
there now. Are there still visiblesigns of the storm's storms presence and damage

(07:06):
roundtown? There are There's still alot of blue tarps on roofs, even
our city facilities, some of themare still destroyed. Our police department right
outside my window here in my officestill has missing shingles on their roof and
a lot of temporary repairs that needto be permanently fixed. So definitely still

(07:32):
a lot of work to do asfar as recovery goes, and not only
the physical recovery, but mental recoveryas well. Now Northport, of course
got the double whammy. It experiencedstorm surge and also experienced flooding along the
rivers and creeks. How does thatfactor into future planning for future storms.

(07:55):
So we experience what they're calling afive hundred year storm, twenty two inches
of rain in twenty four hours,and as our city manager said, anybody
who got that amount of rain andthat amount of time probably would have flooded.
It's hopefully doesn't happen again for anotherfive hundred years. But we are

(08:16):
updating our plans. We're including moreboat coordination in our planning because that was
a big It wasn't an issue itwas. It was more of a surprise
from what I've heard, how manyamazing people in Northport have boats and we're
willing to go out and help withsearch and rescue efforts. So that's something

(08:37):
we added into our planning. Additionalmitigation efforts for our waterways. We're looking
to fix or replace some water controlstructures that need to be fixed or replaced.
We have some grant money we're tryingto get to help with those costs
as well, and then we're trainingand exercising our floodplans more too. We

(08:58):
actually have a threat, Hazard Identificationand Risk Assessment plan that we're writing,
and that will involve flooding heavily.So we're going to be working with a
vendor to help us really create avery good flood exercise so that we can
really practice what our new plans are. So it sounds as though the city
has a lot of initiatives underway tomitigate any future storm situations we do,

(09:24):
and you know, there's always morethat can be done. We're hiring.
I'm getting a deputy Emergency Management coordinator. We're doing interviews next week, so
I'm very excited to go from ateam of one to a team of two.
We're a growing city, so that'sanother thing that we're doing to expand
our capabilities as well, because I'monly one person and I have big dreams

(09:46):
for the city of north Part sothe more people who can help, the
better. That sounds like a lotof depth for a city the size of
Northport. I know you're growing rapidly, so it sounds like you're getting a
lot of res in place. Andyou mentioned cooperation with the county and being
able to reach out quickly and getresources, and I assume there's also going

(10:09):
to be a lot of coordination withthe school district for future events because they,
of course are maintaining most of theplaces that end up being used to
shelters. Yes, so the county, by state statute leads the evacuation center
initiative. We do provide support ifneeded. We do provide assistance if they

(10:33):
need us to. But really thecounty does a great job of handling all
of the sheltering operations that they do, and they open up all fourteen shelters
for idealia very quickly. They areon a very tight ship. It's very
impressive what the counting can accomplish insuch a small amount of time with those
partnerships with the school district. Itis great to see so a lot going

(10:54):
on there, and certainly it's aan important anniversary for everybody involved. If
there was one lesson that you wantedto point to, just as the distilled
the most important thing to remember afterEan to apply to the future and Northport,
what would it be. That's abig buzzword after Ian was resiliency,

(11:20):
and you heard it so much,You're like, come on, people,
resiliency, I'm sick of hearing it. But it is building a more resilient
community means that we can recover faster. Events like this won't affect us as
much as they used to. Sothe government can only do so much.
The community needs to also do theirpart. Be prepared, know what resources

(11:43):
you have, joined some volunteer organizations. You're really the first responders. You're
the ones who are in your homesable to help first a lot of times
before we can get to you.So it's really important that you're prepared.
You have an evacuation plan, youhave a reentry plan, and do you

(12:03):
know how to help your community recover? And we have resources as well that
will help you along the way too. But we really want to empower the
community to be more resilient and tohelp us in the recovery effort as well.
Stacy Lossio, the emergency manager forthe City of Northport, thank you
very much for joining us on Beyondthe News. Thank you so much. Gordon